Continue our series through 1 Corinthians. Pick up here at verse six in chapter four. Please give your attention to the word of God. I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Already you have all you want. Already you have become rich. Without us, you have become kings. And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you. For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour, we hunger and thirst. We are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When we vile, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. When slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. I did not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere in every church. Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power. What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness? A battlefield is not a place of rest. A battlefield is not a place of ease. A battlefield is not a place where you enjoy glory. A battlefield is a place where you win glory. We are those who pray, your kingdom come. And we pray that not because the kingdom is absent, but because it is not yet present as we would wish it to be present. We do not yet see Jesus. We do not yet see his enemies underneath his feet. We know by faith that he has sat down, but we have not sat down. We are still on the battlefield. And so as we are not at rest, we are to imitate him, not in his present rest, but in his former struggling on earth. We would imitate him in his walk in this world, his suffering, and his patience, and his love. This is what Jesus said to the seven churches. This is what he said in the farewell discourse. Therefore, this is what Paul said to the church in Turkey. Through many trials, we must enter the kingdom of God. So we are on a battlefield. And so it is not for us to seek glory now from men. It's for us to see glory from the Lord when he returns. What we have here is the carefully crafted climax of the first third of the letter. For four chapters, he has been working to adjust their attitude. And until now, he has appeared to be working on the presenting problem. That is the obvious problem. He has been working on the factions. That these people were saying, I am of Paul. And these people were saying, well, I am of Apollo. So that one was saying, well, I'm of Peter. He's been dealing with those factions and saying, what are you doing? There's one Christ who died for you. So he wraps that up in the first verse I read. I've applied all these things to myself and Apollos. Those must have been the two biggest factions. He says, neither one of us want these factions. I've applied this to us so that you would no longer be making so much of us. And then in verse seven, he goes to a deeper task. In verse seven, he pivots from dealing with the factions, and he goes to the real problem. that they wanted their glory now. And so to get at that, that desire for glory, that I am better than you, that we are better than y'all, to get at that, he asks a brilliant question. What do you have that you did not receive? And that is a question for every human being, a great question. What do you have that you did not receive? Americans like to talk about a self-made man. That's ridiculous. You needed a father and a mother and God's blessing with it. There are no self-made men. You know what we mean, but let's not even talk about that. No, no. We are all creatures. And the point of the word creature is that word create in the front of it. We were all created. We all have a creator. And so whatever we have, we have in some way from that creator. You think you have great genes? Well then thank your mother and your father and God too. You had nothing to do with that. You think you've made the most of those genes? Well, you should probably thank your father and mother who probably have something to do with the opportunity to do that, and definitely thank God. If He hadn't given you health, what would you have developed? If He had not given you opportunity, where would you be? Here is the first reason that every human being should bow the knee to their Creator. What do you have that you did not receive? You say, I have worked hard. Good. Who gave you the opportunity? Who gave you the breaks? Who gave you the health? Who gave you the place to show it? Who gave you the strength? What do you have that you did not receive? And Christians, we have even more reason for humility. Because we have seen that God sent his son to love us and save us by dying for our sins on a cross. And so it's not just that we're creatures. We're sinful creatures. And yet let us not stay there. God sent his son into the world. So we are saved sinful creatures. And so whatever we have, all our salvation, all the grounds for our salvation, we have all of it as a gift from God. And what do you have that you did not receive? One of the commentators commented, you know, the previous book, Romans, he's obviously arguing that we are saved by God's grace through Jesus alone. And that's kind of the argument of Romans. And you can come to 1 Corinthians and think, oh, this is very different, he's not talking about that. But he's talking about it right here. In fact, that's the basis for pretty much everything he says. The basis for all of his problem solving and all of the advice, all the counsel, comes back to God's given us so much. He's given us everything. What do we have? that we did not receive. And I want to encourage you not to think of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, but rather to think about, okay, how did God do that? He sent his son. He came into the world as a man to die on the cross. Think about Christ on the cross. When you think about the cross, that is, think about Jesus on the cross, what should that generate in you? to first of all generate humility. Lord, it's really that bad? Like, it really took that much? And keep it for yourself, to save me from my sins? Are you sure you couldn't have just told me to work extra hard, a couple extra weekends? Or maybe sacrifice some time, or an animal? Really, it was that bad that it took the death of God the Son to pay for my sins. You see why this message is offensive. People do not want to be that humble. We don't want to be that humble. It might be intolerable if we could not then proceed from the humility to the consolation. Nonetheless, we are loved that much. Nonetheless, God did send his son. Nonetheless, while we were yet sinners at the right time, Christ died for us. While we were yet rebels, Christ died for us. We have grounds for great humility, but we also have grounds for great confidence and consolation and love. And that should proceed to an attitude towards other people, towards a feeling of unity. For He did not die for my sins alone, but also for yours. He unites us and He calls us His sheep. He calls us His people. How unified should we be? And He gives us then this purpose. For there's others no worse than us, who also need Jesus Christ for salvation. They will not be saved by our arrogance. We must walk the way Jesus walked. When you think about the cross, powerful reasons for humility and consolation, for unity and purpose. With these things in mind, we walk the spiritual battlefield, walking the way that Jesus walked his spiritual battlefield. And so having carefully prepared the ground, Paul, having showed us where to go, Paul then aims to drive us out of our feudal castles. He's very sarcastic. This is quite sharp. Already, you have all you want. Already, you've become rich. Without us, you've become kings. This is sarcastic. This is ironic. He's not saying, oh, you are kings. He's saying, you foolish people, you think you're kings. Now, if you think that this sarcasm is too much for you, I want to take a minute and show you how gently and carefully he's built up to this. Because why did he begin with them? He began with a blessing, grace to you and peace. How did he go on? He got on to say, I thank God every time I think of you and I pray for you. And you know, I thank God for all those spiritual gifts that he gave you that you're so proud of. I'm glad that he gave them to you. He's the one who's put the main fact in front of them, the cross. He has condescended to spend time explaining himself and why he and Apollos didn't do things just the same way. He said, you know, I chose not to use too many fireworks because I don't want your faith to be in me. I want your faith to be in God. He said, furthermore, you guys were beginners when I got there and I couldn't speak advanced things to beginners. He said, you know, really, if you think about it the right way, Paul and Apollos, we are field hands. And you know you wouldn't rally around lowly field hands. You're glad that you're better than field hands. Well, we're field hands, and you're the field. So why are the yams yammering? You ought to be one. And having shown them the right way, Now, he drives him from the futile self-regard. Oh, you're rich. Oh, you're kings. You're so full of yourselves, how can you think you've already arrived? How'd you get there so quick? Don't you know that spiritual maturity has many blessings that are well worth the struggle, and they take a lifetime of struggle to get there? Are you so pleased with a little speaking in tongues? You have so much more to learn. And when he says, you become rich, you become kings, he's not choosing those words at random. Nowadays, we have these words, cynical and stoic. Back then, they had actual cynics and stoics. Those were schools of philosophy. When you read, nowadays, when you spell the adjectives, you use a lowercase letter. But when you talk about the philosophers, you've got to use an uppercase letter, right? They were the cynics, the stoics. One of the emperors was a stoic. These are major schools of philosophy. And what those schools of philosophy promised was follow us and the true cynic is a king. Follow our stoic philosophy and become a wise man. And the wise man, he's rich no matter what he has. He is a king. And there was a big time Jewish philosopher saying, yeah, and the law of Moses is the way to achieve the goals of philosophy. And so the question could be, okay, can Christians take that same line? Is Christianity the way to be rich and to be kings? And the answer is, yeah, eventually. But not in this world. Never in an earthly sense. Not in the senses in which you are thinking. That's why the health and wealth gospel is a monstrous heresy. Read this passage. He's making fun of that idea. He's making fun of the idea that if you're really with God, that we can tell because you have everything going well in your life. He's mocking it. Because what was Jesus' life like? First came the cross, then the resurrection. Who did Jesus send out? The apostles. Well, how are things going for the apostles? Well, he tells you. We're spectacles, we're mocked, we're held in disrepute, we're hungry. All these sufferings, it's not a sign that they must not be from God. He says these things are signs that we are from God. Because when you're in battle, you acquire scars. And where, he says to the Corinthians, are your scars? Here are mine. Where are yours? Did you go AWOL? Now, cynics and Stoics also talked about suffering. They knew about suffering. Everybody in the ancient world knew about suffering. And they also preached endurance. So we'd better be very clear about how it is that we are to endure suffering, lest we do it in a cynic sense or a Stoic way. The cynic said, be indifferent to the world. Achieve your contentment. without the world, beside the world. And the Stoic said, be brave, be strong, be a man. Show that you are greater than the suffering. And what is that? That is an appeal to your pride. And that is not the way for Christians to suffer. We can resonate with that. We can go, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to show I am bigger than this, tougher than this. Yeah. But that's not the Christian side of it. That's the pull of stoicism and macho. Now, when a Christian suffers, we're to reflect on the cross that is on Christ. Christ was not indifferent to the world. He died to save it. Nor did he become hardened as he went through suffering. But rather, he thought of others. He said, mother, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Christ was certainly not stoic. This might be part of why the Gospels spell out how unstoic he was. As he wept tears, as he said, Father, let this cup pass from me. As he used psalms of desolation from the cross. Christ suffered in the world, from the world, out of love. And he did it to save us from our sins, which include pride. So endure suffering, beloved. but not in a way that cultivates your pride, but imitate Christ, who would bless, who endured. And so we are not to retaliate, even if the world thinks we're punks and weak. As we suffer, we suffer not to prove that we are rocks. We suffer to prove that Christ is our rock. But you have to know why And how to suffer. You suffer like Christ, that's how. And why? For God's glory. To advance Christ's kingdom. And to show Christ to your neighbor. How do you know how to suffer? God's given us two things. He's given us the word and he's given us living examples. You can start from your own life and work out thinking about examples and where you can find examples. You can start with God. How did God give us examples? Well, the greatest example he gave us was by coming himself. Jesus is the great example. And Jesus sent out the apostles, not just to teach the word, but also to be examples. And if that sounds egotistical, think about the alternative. If Paul cannot say, imitate me, why not? Is he saying, do as I say and not as I do? Well, then he's a hypocrite. we must be able to say, imitate me as I imitate Christ. That's what Paul says, 1 Corinthians 11.1. And so he says, so I sent you Timothy, he's my faithful child. I sent you Timothy to remind you of what this is, of how to do it. He's been my child longer than you. Imitate him as he imitates me, and I imitate Christ. So we're not to live this life anymore seeking glory from men. If the praise is not worth it, they change their minds all the time. We're to seek the city which is to come, which we enter by pleasing the Father by imitating the Son. But since we're slow to understand, why do we have to suffer again? Why can't we have the glory now? Because we're still in the world. And the world still hates Jesus. About that, just this afternoon, I heard about somebody very young saying, I'm a Christian. And the other little kid said, I hate Christians. Oh, welcome to kindergarten. There you go. We're still in the world. But Jesus is still advancing his kingdom. And so we are on a battlefield as the kingdoms clash. We don't want to remember that. Is it because we're afraid? Or because we're lazy? Or we just want some glory now from people? So the solution is to remember Christ's death and resurrection. The resurrection gives us the victory and the reward and the hope and the future. The cross gives us the necessary humility now. The necessary consolation now. The necessary assurance of God's love, now. The necessary example, now. Jesus said, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Let us not shrink away from persecution, but rather embrace the sign that we must truly be His. So dwell on the cross, beloved. Be humble. but comforted, loved, consoled, and live for his glory. Let the glory you seek come from him. May he say to you, well done, good and faithful servant. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that you'd stir us up by means of your word and by means of godly examples. Lord, help us to also reflect that we are to progress from following examples to becoming examples. Lord, help us on this path. Help us to grow as Timothy did. Help us to grow and to become those who can be imitated because we are imitating you. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. Let's stop right now to share those things we wanna give thanks for and those things that we would like to pray.